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Mar 3, 2020

Astronomers: Something Is Warping Our Entire Galaxy

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Hmmm dark matter perhaps or a still unknown type of exterrestial physics. Much like bootes which in my expert opinion is an alien dimension maybe there are still Easter eggs hidden in the fabric of our universe that can take several lifetimes to understand even with advanced technology understanding may still be like scratching at the ceiling of infinity of understanding but may not be as difficult.


It’s a mystery that’s been puzzling astronomers for years.

Mar 3, 2020

When Giant Mushrooms Ruled the Earth

Posted by in category: futurism

Long before trees overtook the land, earth was covered by giant mushrooms.

24 feet tall and three feet wide, these giant spires dotted the ancient landscape.

A chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall (6-metre) organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago.

Mar 3, 2020

Chemists inhibit a critical gear of cell immortality

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

One of the hallmarks of cancer is cell immortality. A Northwestern University organic chemist and his team now have developed a promising molecular tool that targets and inhibits one of cell immortality’s underlying gears: the enzyme telomerase.

This enzyme is found overexpressed in approximately 90% of human and has become an important subject of study for researchers. Normal have the gene for telomerase, but it typically is not expressed.

“Telomerase is the primary enzyme that allows cancer cells to live forever,” said Karl A. Scheidt, who led the research. “We want to short-circuit this immortality. Now we have designed a first-of-its-kind small molecule that irreversibly binds to telomerase, shutting down its activity. This mechanism offers a new pathway for treating cancer and understanding cellular aging.”

Mar 3, 2020

Hints of fossil DNA discovered in dinosaur skull

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

I want a mini trex pet idc what peeps say lol :p.


Scientists have spotted cellular structures—and a substance that behaves like DNA—in cartilage more than 70 million years old.

Mar 3, 2020

If you want to save bumble bees, plant these flowers in your yard

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, education, habitats, sustainability

Humans are the cause of many problems because humans follow humans with no solutions. Everyone is talking about coronavirus, but not about ending the virus because they are not solutions driven. Just as Wangari Maathai taught the world to plant trees to fix what humans messed up. We need to also teach the world to plant bees #beekeeping to fix what humans messed up. This does not just mean bees, but other species we are making extinct. We need to be the change not just talk about and protest for change.


Researchers have figured out which plant species bumble bees prefer to include in their diets, providing advice to those wishing to help with bee conservation efforts.

During the summer months of 2015 to 2016, authors captured bumble bees on more than 100 plant species across more than 400 plots in the Plumas National Forest in California — a mountainous, meadowy area with wildlife habitats near running water, where bumble bees are abundant.

Continue reading “If you want to save bumble bees, plant these flowers in your yard” »

Mar 3, 2020

Whole Genome Sequencing Identifies a Missense Mutation in HES7 Associated with Short Tails in Asian Domestic Cats

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, evolution, genetics

Domestic cats exhibit abundant variations in tail morphology and serve as an excellent model to study the development and evolution of vertebrate tails. Cats with shortened and kinked tails were first recorded in the Malayan archipelago by Charles Darwin in 1868 and remain quite common today in Southeast and East Asia. To elucidate the genetic basis of short tails in Asian cats, we built a pedigree of 13 cats segregating at the trait with a founder from southern China and performed linkage mapping based on whole genome sequencing data from the pedigree. The short-tailed trait was mapped to a 5.6 Mb region of Chr E1, within which the substitution c. 5T C in the somite segmentation-related gene HES7 was identified as the causal mutation resulting in a missense change (p. V2A). Validation in 245 unrelated cats confirmed the correlation between HES7-c. 5T C and Chinese short-tailed feral cats as well as the Japanese Bobtail breed, indicating a common genetic basis of the two. In addition, some of our sampled kinked-tailed cats could not be explained by either HES7 or the Manx-related T-box, suggesting at least three independent events in the evolution of domestic cats giving rise to short-tailed traits.

The majority of vertebrate species, with the remarkable exceptions of humans and apes, possess a visible tail throughout their lifespans. The animal tail is an important appendage to the torso and plays adaptive roles in locomotion, balance, communication, thermoregulation and even energy storage1. In vertebrates, tails vary dramatically in color, size, shape and mobility and represent different evolutionary histories, including multiple independent events of shortening or loss of the tail in distinct lineages. Understanding the genetic causes of intraspecific tail length polymorphism would be one essential step toward elucidating the mechanisms underlying the development and evolution of tails. In laboratory mice, genetic studies of axial skeleton development have identified multiple genes and mutations involved in caudal vertebra development that have pleiotropic effects on fertility, somitogenesis, and meiotic recombination, thus shedding light on vertebrate evolution2,3,4,5.

Mar 3, 2020

This concrete is alive

Posted by in category: materials

This concrete can heal itself, saving billions in construction costs.

Mar 3, 2020

CDC to issue guidance that patients can get coronavirus test with doctor’s orders

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Finally!


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will soon issue new guidance clarifying that Americans can be tested for the coronavirus subject to a doctor’s orders.

Vice President Pence previewed the guidance during an off-camera briefing with reporters at the White House Tuesday evening, explaining that some local officials were given the false impression that tests could only be administered to patients who were more than mildly symptomatic.

Continue reading “CDC to issue guidance that patients can get coronavirus test with doctor’s orders” »

Mar 3, 2020

The Impossibility of Mind Uploading

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, computing, neuroscience

My most recent post, “Living in a Computer Simulation,” elicited some insightful comments from a reader skeptical of the possibility of mind uploading. Here is his argument with my own brief response to it below.

My comment concerns a reductive physicalist theory of the mind, which is the view that all mental states and properties of the mind will eventually be explained by scientific accounts of physiological processes and states … Basically, my argument is that for this view of the mind, mind uploading into a computer is completely impractical due to accumulation of errors.

In order to replicate the functioning of a “specific” human mind within a computer, one needs to replicate the functioning of all parts of that specific brain within the computer. [In fact, the whole human body needs to be represented because the mind is a product of all sensations of all parts of the body coalescing within the brain. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just consider replicating only the brain.] In order to represent a specific human brain in the computer, each neuron in the brain would need a digital or analog representation, instantiated in hardware, software or a combination of the two. Unless this representation is an exact biological copy (clone), it will have some inherent “error” associated with it. So, let’s do a sort of “error analysis” (admittedly non-rigorous).

Mar 3, 2020

Samsung Galaxy Note 20 to include new features that we’ve never seen before

Posted by in category: mobile phones

Another patent leak shows that Samsung is bringing unexpected tech to the Galaxy Note 20 phablet.